New Delhi: Portrait helps nail minor’s rapist

Seven months after the mutilated body of a five-year-old girl, who was kidnapped and murdered after being raped, was discovered from an isolated plot in northwest Delhi’s Swaroop Nagar, a 19-year-old youth has been arrested in connection with the incident.

A team of the northwest district police arrested Akash Chaudhary, a resident of IP Colony in Swaroop Nagar on Tuesday from the same area, police said on Wednesday.

According to a senior police officer, Chaudhary was arrested after an anonymous caller gave the police information that he saw a man whose face matched with the portrait of Akash, which had been pasted at several places in Ashok Vihar and Swaroop Nagar.

The portrait had been made on the basis of an account given by an eyewitness.

“Akash’s features almost perfectly matched with the portrait. Initially, he pleaded innocence but when subjected to sustained grilling, he broke down and confessed to his crime,” said the senior officer.

“Chaudhary raped the girl on June 29 and then strangled her to death. The girl’s decomposed body was discovered on July 5, six days after she went missing, by a local resident,” said the senior officer.